Chingri malai curry or Bengali-style prawns with coconut

I don't cook masses of Bengali food, but with the traditional festival of Durga Puja looming, I thought I'd dig out this classic. Chingri malai curry (or indeed malaikari), is a very simple dish combining prawns, whole spices and the rather un-typical Bengali ingredient of coconut milk. Some reading tells me that the word 'malai' probably derives from Malay, and this explains the use of coconut milk too. Like many Indian recipes, there are lots of versions of this around, so this is my one.

Recipe (enough for two as a main dish):
Around 250g raw prawns (shell off, and de-veined)
1 small red onion
1 fat clove of garlic
A thumb-sized piece of ginger
1 tsp turmeric
4-5 green cardamon pods, split
1 large, dried bay leaf
1-2 pieces of cinnamon or cassia bark
1-2 green, Indian finger chillis, pierced a few times
1 tsp ground coriander
2-3 tblsp sunflower oil
Around 100g coconut cream
Around 100ml hot water
1-2 tsp salt for seasoning


Mix the prawns with the turmeric and a teaspoon of salt, and put in the fridge for an hour or so. If you're not going to cook the prawns until much later, leave out the salt. While the prawns are busy turning yellow, make a paste from the onions, garlic and ginger. It's definitely easiest to do this in a food processor, but a pestle and mortar would do the job too. Take the prawns out of the fridge 10 minutes or so before you want to start cooking, and add the salt (if you haven't earlier).
Heat a couple of tablespoons of oil in a pan, and when it's hot (but not smoking) add the prawns. Cook for a couple of minutes, until they are lightly coloured but not fully cooked through. Take the prawns out of the pan, add another tablespoon of oil (if needed) and add all the whole spices. Turn the heat down, so that they are just gently sizzling. After a couple of minutes put the ground coriander, chillies and onion paste in. As they soften, add the water to the coconut cream to create coconut milk which is the thickness of single cream. You may need to adjust the amount of water or coconut cream to achieve this. When the spices and paste have cooked for a good 10 minutes or so, put the coconut in and simmer for around 5 minutes to create a sauce. Put the prawns back in, add a little salt, and simmer again for 5 minutes until the prawns are fully cooked.

You should have a rich, thick coconut gravy which is subtly spiced and still tender prawns. Serve with plain, boiled rice, and let out a small sigh of satisfaction once you've finished eating.

Pataks tandoori paste disappointment

So following on from the post below, here's the bit on the prawns. Not being minded to make up my own tandoori paste from scratch, I thought I'd utilise the one made by Pataks instead. I've used other pastes made by them before and have been impressed. They've always been very dense, and intensely flavoured with spices and ginger or garlic, with a thin layer of oil to keep everything well preserved. They've proved to be a very useful shortcut when marinating flavourless things like Quorn before cooking. So I thought I was on safe ground with buying a jar of Patak's tandoori paste to marinate my prawns in before grilling them.

But I probably should have exercised caution when I saw the colour of the contents of the jar. Rather than the rich, fiery red of Kashmiri chillis, this paste was more like a deep fuchsia pink. And this was with the assistance of several varieties of colouring. However my faith in Pataks remained strong and I continued with my purchase. On actually opening the jar, the 'paste' turned out to be more of a gloopy sauce, and on adding yoghurt to make the marinade the colour changed to an even more disturbing raspberry tone. I had a quick taste to check levels of spiciness and found these to be approximately none. I know that tandooris are not usually meant to be super-spicy and I am certainly no chilli-head, but this 'paste' really lacked any significant flavour. I went ahead and added some chilli to the marinade and after a couple of hours, the prawns went under a hot grill. They only took a few minutes to cook through so admittedly not much time to take on that slightly charred effect that an authentic tandoor would produce.

The taste was acceptable but definitely bland. Maybe using the product with meat (or possibly fish) and it's concurrent longer cooking times would improve the finished product, but I remain pretty skeptical. I very sincerely hope that this is a one off failure by Pataks and the rest of their proper pastes remain as good as I remember them being.

Pataks tandoori paste
I rate it 5/10
Cost: Around £1.80

When is a chop not a chop?

So, when is a chop not a chop? When it's a cutlet of course! I am referring to a (rather delicious) anomaly in Indian cooking, that I assume stems from the time of Empire. The Indian chop is not a cut of meat and can often be vegetarian. It is in fact a combo of mashed potatoes mixed with either fish or vegetables and various spices, shaped into patties or chunky sausage shapes, coated in breadcrumbs and fried. Oddly enough the alternative name for a chop in India (or at least West Bengal) is a cutlet. I have yet to definitively establish if there is any difference between the two, and in my experience they both seem to be used inter-changeably, though the term chop is always used in my family. The meat version uses mince (keema), but whatever it's made of the Indian chop bares little relation to its British counterpart. I am intrigued about the origins of the use of this term though- were 'British chops' usually cooked coated in breadcrumbs during Empire times? Were the 'Indian chops' once shaped more like a cut of meat? Maybe the term chop meant something else altogether a few hundred years ago? Is this what India got in exchange for introducing Britain to kedgeree? I plan to continue my linguistic food investigations!

Anyway whatever it's origins, macher (fish) chop with dahl and some rice is one of my favourite Bengali meals. I will blog about this at a later date (when I have some more time to make them properly), but in the meantime here's something I came up with the other day. I had some raw prawns in the fridge that really needed to be cooked, and I felt like doing something a bit different than a stir-fry or pasta dish. So instead I prepared a slightly simplied version of a chingri (prawn) chop a.k.a. prawn fishcakes. This included most of the ingredients used in a classic macher chop, but instead of coating them in breadcrumbs I lightly dusted them in plain flour before shallowing frying. To make enough for around four chops (sufficient for one person as a main course or two as a side dish) I used the following:

Around 140g raw prawns, de-veined (do feel free to increase the amount of prawns as I was just using what I had left in the fridge)
1 medium potato, chopped, boiled and then mashed
Couple of large spring onions, or half a regular, medium, white onion
2 medium cloves of garlic
1/2 inch piece of ginger, peeled
1 green chilli (more if you prefer more heat or include ground chilli)
1 tsp ground corriander
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp-ish salt
plain flour for dusting
oil for frying

I prepared this using a Kenwood mini-chopper, which is one of my most used kitchen gadgets, but pounding and mixing everything by hand is possible (and of course more authentic!). I first made a paste from the onion, chilli, ginger and garlic, before adding in the prawns. The prawns should maintain a bit of texture rather than being blended to a mush. Take this mixture and add it to the (cooled) mashed potato, add the dry spices, and combine. The prawn mix should be wet enough to hold everything together which is why this recipe doesn't include a binding agent like egg (but you can add some beaten egg if it's too dry). Form the chops into patties, put them onto a plate lightly dusted in plain flour, (to stop them sticking) and refrigerate for about 30mins (the longer the better really, but you can get away with 10-15mins in some circumstances i.e. when hungry). When you're ready to cook them, heat enough oil to shallow fry, dust the chops in plain flour, pat off any excess and put them into the hot oil. They'll probably need about 6-8mins on each side, and should be a rich golden brown when they're done. I ate mine with a large salad, but these chops would also be perfect with rice and dahl.

Coming soon- Bengali macher chop and beetroot chop!

Chow mein a.k.a. fried noodles with prawns and green beans

Authentic Chinese food is an area that I'll admit a dearth of knowledge on, so I've often wondered if chow mein is an actual dish or something concocted for Western palates. According to Wikipedia, chow mein is the generic name for a stir-fried noodle dish, I guess in the same way that the term 'curry' is used, and has geographical variations depending on where the Chinese community have migrated to.
Anyway etymological issues aside stir-fried noodles are a great quick dinner option and this is my version. I think there are two key areas that make for a successful dish and they are- preparing all the ingredients in advance, and cooking them at the highest possible heat. As a non-meat eater I've used prawns and beans in this dish, but you could substitute Quorn or just add some different veg like mushrooms to make it properly vegetarian (or add meat if you eat it).
I like using fine egg noodles by a brand like Sharwoods as they are readily available, easy to manoeuvre in the wok and quickly incorporated with the rest of the ingredients. Cook one 'sheet' per person in boiling water for a couple of minutes until they are al dente (they'll finish cooking in the wok), drain and put to one side while you prepare everything else. You can add a teaspoon or two of oil to the noodles to stop them sticking together as they cool. The rest of the ingredients (enough for two) are:

A red or white onion, sliced
Two large handful of green beans, topped and tailed
About 16 large raw prawns, de-veined
3 fat cloves of garlic, finely chopped or crushed
1 medium chilli, de-seeded and finely chopped (use more or less depending on how hot you like things)
3-4 tablespoons (approx) good quality soy sauce like the Kikkoman brand
2-3 tablespoons (approx) flavourless oil like sunflower
Salt (may not be required) and pepper (a generous amount) to season

The amount of oil you'll need for this will vary somewhat with the size of wok and the amount of ingredients that you're stir frying, but basically you need enough to have a thin layer covering the base of the wok and to swirl it up the sides. It's probably not going to rival those huge wok burners they have in Chinese restaurants, but keep your wok on the biggest burner your cooker has, with the highest flame, and when the oil just begins to smoke add the ingredients that will take longest to cook- in this case the beans and onions. If you've washed any vegetables make sure they are thoroughly dried, as hot oil and water are not a good combination. When these are starting to become tender but still crisp (after a couple of minutes), add the garlic and chilli. Make sure you keep everything moving at all times to stop it from sticking or burning, and after another couple of minutes add the prawns. As these begin to colour, add the noodles. As these are stir-fried they'll take on a nice, toasty flavour and be cooked through. Once the prawns are cooked add the soy sauce and a generous amount of black pepper. You probably won't need any salt but have a taste and add some (or more soy sauce) if you want. The entire cooking process shouldn't take more than about 10minutes, and cooking at a high heat should mean that you get that chow mein, fried taste without things being excessively oily.

My assessment of a couple of the key branded ingredients.

Cost: Sharwoods fine egg noodles around £1.18 (for six 'sheets')
I rate them 8/10.

Kikkoman soy sauce around £1.70 (150ml)
I rate it 9/10.